Brothers Documentary Debuts in Miami

The Miami Herald has a story on the debut of the documentary Shoot Down, produced, directed, and written by Cristina Khuly, niece of Armando Alejandre, one of the four who died in the shooting down of the Brothers To The Rescue planes by Cuban MIGs.

Khuly is seeking a distributor who can get her documentary released to theatres. I wish her the best of luck as I'm sure it will be an uphill battle.

Conductor from Cuban-American Pundits attended the screening and offers a review.

Here's the Herald's story:

Downed exiles' story told in documentary

A new documentary about the four Cuban exiles shot down over the Florida Straits by a Cuban fighter jet 10 years ago debuted Sunday in Miami.

BY ROBERT L. STEINBACK

rsteinback@MiamiHerald.com

Ten years after a Cuban government MiG fighter destroyed two unarmed civilian airplanes belonging to the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami audience got its first look Sunday at a documentary film of the crisis -- co-produced by the niece of one of the four victims.

The English-language film, titled Shoot Down, is an attempt to create a thorough and unbiased review of the Feb. 24, 1996, incident and to document the range of opinions expressed by key players of the moment.

''As a documentarian, it's my job to try to have journalistic integrity and to tell a complete story,'' said writer, director and co-producer Cristina Khuly, whose uncle, Armando Alejandre Jr., 45, died over the Florida Straits a decade ago.

``A polemic has its place, but if we really want to reach the broadest possible audience, we have to address how it is that certain people's opinions and misconceptions [about the event] came to exist.''

The other victims were Carlos Costa, 29; Mario de la Peña, 24; and Pablo Morales, 29.

Sunday's audience, which nearly filled the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami, gave the film sustained applause at its conclusion.

''It was very balanced in what they presented,'' said Miamian Eduardo Prats.

Except for a 13-minute recreation of the fateful flights performed by actors, the documentary relies on interviews with key players, archival video footage and some graphic visual elements to tell the story.

Even a news clip of Cuban President Fidel Castro taking responsibility for the shoot-down while also claiming the moral high-ground -- a comment that drew derisive laughter, hisses and one cry of ''Asesino!'' [assassin] from the audience -- made the film.

Perhaps the most dramatic sequence featured authentic audio clips of the Cuban pilots getting their orders to fire on the two Cessna aircraft, then hooting with glee as one plane takes down the targets, played against video placing the audience inside or alongside the doomed airplanes.

Sisters Catalina Quadreny-Castillo and Diley Polini -- whose mother is a cousin of victim Costa -- said they weren't aware of the growing political tension between the United States and Cuba over previous Brothers overflights of Cuba, and about warnings that the Cuban government might react violently.

''I wasn't aware that was a special day that they shouldn't have flown,'' Polini said. ``I wasn't aware that there had been problems to that extent.''

Khuly, who grew up in Miami, now lives in New York with her co-producer and husband Douglas Eger.

The couple said they will enter the movie, which cost less than $500,000, in various film festivals while seeking a distributor that might arrange for theatrical release.